> You want to sell a da Vinci? Well then you have to make private meetings with potential clients, and, you have to create ads that sell it as iconic.

That’s sales, not marketing. You wouldn’t bother to create ads for a Da Vinci, as the pool of people with the means to buy one is so small and the process of buying one is so convoluted. See also jet engines.

> You want to make people buy your brand of beer? Well you have to sell the story of it being generally accepted as a high quality brand.

The article is contesting that what you actually need is to make people aware of your brand at the moment they are about to consume one. The brand associations matter in this on some level, but are tangential. Stella Artois has completely different brand connotations in the US to the UK and EU for instance.